Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

[Tuatha de Danaan]

@luc

Congratulations on your new article! Excellent stuff. It's all pretty simple and obvious from where I'm standing, but apparently most people are standing somewhere else, and these things should probably be repeated quite often, so this is really helpful.

It pretty much all revolves around "just think for yourself, goddamn it!", but for some reason most people never learn to do that. Constant reminders are therefore required, so thanks for this one, for everyone's sake.

For those who may have missed it:

Darwinism Is Dead, Now What? Towards A Rational Spirituality

There is a great debate going on at the moment about Darwinism, especially after Yale professor David Gelernter published an article in which he basically agreed with the devastating criticism leveled at the theory by the scholars associated with...

www.sott.net

Wonderful article. Wishful thinking I know, but imagine that being read out from every pulpit on a Sunday. It wouldn't take long. Sorry, like I said wishful thinking.

 

[Ina]

In University I studied Paleontology, which, simply stated deals with the study of fossil records in geological time. I also learned about the history of evolution theories. Darwin brought a detailed explicative rationality that, for him, worked incrementally. If you study the existing fossils, anyone will observe, that It does not explain evolution as it does not explain involution, as it leaves the divergent qualitative jumps and / or lacunae in fossil records to ‘environment’ or other factors. The same with the modern horse, the human does not seem to fit the darwinian model of evolution of species belonging to both regnums animalia and vegetalia. So was Darwin fundamentally wrong? Does he deserve revision to the point of oblivion? Is there any way to keep Darwin where he and the entire cognitive societal system put himself without partially lobotomizing ourselves? For what it counts, and wishing well to Darwin, the need for an anti darwinism revolution lies with an adverse reaction to the work (taken sometimes to absurd levels) of following opportunistic scientists that I could only compare to the politicians of our time. It is very easy to bring critiques to anything that exists, than to create, and more so to create from... scratch.

 

[Joe]

For what it counts, and wishing well to Darwin, the need for an anti darwinism revolution lies with an adverse reaction to the work (taken sometimes to absurd levels) of following opportunistic scientists that I could only compare to the politicians of our time. It is very easy to bring critiques to anything that exists, than to create, and more so to create from... scratch.

Not sure I fully understand you. Are you saying in the above that anti-darwinism is legitimate because of a group of politician-like scientists who have an adverse reaction to the anti-darwinism?

 

[mamibio74]

Joe, a very mischievous answer, I find :-RÉ !

 

[monotonic]

Is there any way to keep Darwin where he and the entire cognitive societal system put himself without partially lobotomizing ourselves?

Not if it means using darwinism to explain things it can't explain. And in that sense we are already lobotomized, what we are actually trying to do is reverse the lobotomy. This doesn't mean we lose all progress made under Darwinism. Although it may feel that way to someone deeply invested in it. If there is anything scientists are utterly terrified of losing, it is progress, or at least the illusion of it. What actually happens is that science gains a large field of new material to work on, after it discards it's wrong assumptions which were excluding that study. From the proper perspective, science then becomes much more interesting and productive. Old material becomes new material when it can be productively reinterpreted. And we have an enormous reservoir of fieldwork already done which we can draw on.

 

[Ina]

Charles Darwin wrote the book On the Origin of Species, in 1859. Darwinism, is a generalizing concept created in 1860 by Thomas Huxley.

 

[Ina]

Not sure I fully understand you. Are you saying in the above that anti-darwinism is legitimate because of a group of politician-like scientists who have an adverse reaction to the anti-darwinism?

Yes, Joe, Darwinism and anti-darwinism. When I wrote the initial post I was thinking about the ammonites, but it is not that important. What is important is that much of the conclusions in some scientific papers is conjecture. When you base your research convictions on an ‘ism’ the result is not science but political discourse.

 

[Ina]

Old material becomes new material when it can be productively reinterpreted. And we have an enormous reservoir of fieldwork already done which we can draw on.

Old material can be reinterpreted only if it is characterizing a process from a qualitative perspective. What you will get is a new qualitative interpretation following: flavor of the day, current policy or your supervisor’s instruction. As far as the enormous reservoir of field work data, it could be used as some indication. Existing quantitative data can be used for reprocessing if and only if it is consistent, fully documented complete and has a fully known provenience. However, the validity of the conclusions of the new analysis using old data will be limited to the degree of accuracy and precision of the data, which unfortunately at the level of current technology will make the conclusions semi redundant. But I bet you were not talking about the data.

 

[daddycat]

Charles Darwin wrote the book On the Origin of Species, in 1859.

Perhaps repeated references to the full title will help discredit it: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Or perhaps calling it Darwin's Preservation of Favoured Races instead.

 

[Laura]

Perhaps repeated references to the full title will help discredit it: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Or perhaps calling it Darwin's Preservation of Favoured Races instead.

Yeah. Talk about a seriously racist dude! People should talk about that!

 

[Jones]

Here's a picture of the inside cover of the book. How about putting heads together and coming up with a statement to use with it on social media?

 

[Joe]

Article here about a "new" recombinant virus that "defies evolution" because it has no structural proteins, which means it cannot make a viral particle. According to the guys who found it: "We are wondering how this new virus came to be" because it shouldn't actually exist based on current (evolution-based) understanding of such things.

Mysterious newly discovered virus DEFIES EVOLUTION, current scientific understanding

Scientists in Japan have discovered a new type of virus which could redefine our understanding of viruses and how they propagate and spread, all while sifting through pig feces.

www.rt.com

 

[Mandatory Intellectomy]

Article here about a "new" recombinant virus that "defies evolution" because it has no structural proteins, which means it cannot make a viral particle. According to the guys who found it: "We are wondering how this new virus came to be" because it shouldn't actually exist based on current (evolution-based) understanding of such things.

The sad thing is that the scientists are approaching it with bias and assumptions from the get go. It hasn't even occurred to them that their theory might be wrong. Their concern is how to make this discovery fit their model, not whether their model is correct, as seen from these remarks:

We may be facing an entirely new system of viral evolution

Our future work will be on solving this mystery of viral evolution.

It's not about how this virus came to be; it's about how this virus evolved. Again, it's like they can't even think without using the word evolution. Talk about thinking inside the box. So now it's all about making something up to "explain" how this can be possible while keeping the Darwinism zombie alive.

 

[luc]

C.S. Lewis apparently has anticipated many of the ID arguments. Interesting little video:

 

[herondancer]

C.S. Lewis apparently has anticipated many of the ID arguments. Interesting little video:

Oh, you beat me to it! It's a lovely little documentary. I had no idea C.S. Lewis was so interested in the topic. But it makes sense as his Oxford club was debating whether or not God was real. Spoiler: there's nice a bit at the end where a student who attended the sessions but stuck to his own atheist views, finally came around near the end of own his life, because of Lewis' insistence on vigourously 'following the evidence'.

Well worth 16 minutes of time.